grail
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See also: GRAIL
English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /ɡɹeɪl/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- Rhymes: -eɪl
Etymology 1
[edit]From Middle English graal, greal, from Old French graal, greal (“cup”), from Medieval Latin gradalis, possibly corrupted over time from Latin crater (“bowl”).
Noun
[edit]grail (plural grails)
- The Holy Grail.
- 1989, 1:06:54 from the start, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade[1] (Action-Adventure), spoken by Henry Jones, Sr. (Sean Connery), →OCLC:
- The quest for the Grail is not archeology. It's a race against evil. If it is captured by the Nazis, the armies of darkness will march all over the face of the earth. Do you understand me?
- Something eagerly sought or quested for.
- Becoming an astronaut was his grail.
- 2002, Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man, Penguin Books (2003), page 214:
- How many of them had found the item they dreamt of, their personal grails?
Related terms
[edit]Etymology 2
[edit]From Middle English grayel, from Old French grael, ultimately from Latin graduale. Doublet of gradual.
Noun
[edit]grail (plural grails)
- A book of offices in the Roman Catholic Church; a gradual.
- 1694, John Strype, the Memorials of Thomas Cranmer:
- antiphonals, missals, grails, processionals, etc.
Etymology 3
[edit]Uncertain; perhaps a reduced form of gravel.
Noun
[edit]grail (uncountable)
- (poetic) Small particles of earth; gravel.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- Hereof this gentle knight vnweeting was, / And lying downe vpon the sandie graile, / Drunke of the streame, as cleare as cristall glas [...].
Etymology 4
[edit]Compare Old French graite slender.
Noun
[edit]grail (plural grails)
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English 1-syllable words
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- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/eɪl
- Rhymes:English/eɪl/1 syllable
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Medieval Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
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- English doublets
- English terms with unknown etymologies
- English uncountable nouns
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